Upper West Side condo board sues couple for bed-and-breakfast

An Upper West Side condominium board is suing a couple for running an unofficial bed-and-breakfast out of their apartment.

Olmstead Condominium. Credit: GoogleMaps.

A Central Park West condo board is not happy with a couple who bragged online about making money off of renting out their apartment on Airbnb.com, DNAinfo reports.

The condo board has gone so far as to bring a suit against the couple in Manhattan Supreme Court accusing Gavin and Jodi Samuels of hosting large Shabbat dinners, cooking classes, and renting out the apartment for over 30 days at a time without board approval.

The board's lawyers allege that these practices are in violation of the condo's bylaws .

In January, boardmembers scoured the sites to find the couple had rented out the apartment five times in 2012, usually for under two weeks.

"As usual, we rent out our New York apartment at a premium...it actually pays for us to go away," Jodi Samuels had on Metroimma, a website for Jewish mothers.

The couple already received a $5,500 fine by the board when they did not heed to a order to stop using the apartment as a bed-and-breakfast.

According to the suit, the couple hosted regular Shabbat cooking class where they charged $15 per person, as well as Shabbat dinners that served around 40 people per meal, at $25 to $30 a head.

The board's lawyers estimate that adds up to about 1,000 dinner guests per year, and complain of the increased burden that places on the building's elevators and staff, as well as bothersome foot traffic in the hallways.

The board's lawyers also reportedly noted that city frowns on subletting apartments through websites like airbnb.com and homeaway.com.